Cal's cosmic thinkers to get a place to hang out

Patricia Yollin, Chronicle Staff Writer

Published 4:00 am, Wednesday, December 5, 2007

Photo: Mike Kepka

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George Smoot, 2006 Nobel laureate in physics and UC Berkeley professor of physics, was the guest of honor during an announcement of a new cosmology research center will be made in part by Smoot's share of the 2006 Nobel Prize in Physics. Mike Kepka / The Chronicle Photo taken on 12/4/07, in Berkeley, CA, USA MANDATORY CREDIT FOR PHOTOG AND SAN FRANCISCO CHRONICLE/NO SALES-MAGS OUT less

George Smoot, 2006 Nobel laureate in physics and UC Berkeley professor of physics, was the guest of honor during an announcement of a new cosmology research center will be made in part by Smoot's share of the ... more

Photo: Mike Kepka

Cal's cosmic thinkers to get a place to hang out

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A year ago, George Smoot won the Nobel Prize for physics. He used $500,000 of his award to finance a dream, and on Tuesday it came to life: the $8.1 million Berkeley Center for Cosmological Physics.

"All I did was have a vision and state what I wanted to do," said Smoot, a UC Berkeley astrophysicist who was awarded almost $700,000 in Nobel money for his studies of cosmic microwave background radiation.

The center became an official UC entity at an event on the fourth floor of old LeConte Hall, where it will occupy a few rooms at first and - like the universe - keep expanding. It will be a place where scientists now scattered all over campus can meet and collaborate and where young postdoctoral researchers can pursue projects that could turn into Nobels.

Chit-chat in the center is likely to be lofty and to cover such territory as where the universe came from, how it's developing and where it's going.

"Giving people room to fail as well as succeed is becoming increasingly rare," said Mark Richards, dean of physical sciences at UC Berkeley and a professor of Earth and planetary science.

Smoot said he wants to foster work that is both precise and accurate. Although that doesn't sound overly ambitious, often it can be.

"There used to be a phrase about cosmologists: They're never in doubt, but they're often in error," Smoot told a laughing crowd.

Afterward, he joked that his endowment gift - which kicked off a wave of donations - was a mistake.

"What I should have done was save that money and hire a housekeeper," said Smoot, who still insists on driving a 21-year-old Toyota Camry.

He has spent his Nobel year traveling, lecturing and fundraising, and now will serve as director of the center, where three postdoctoral researchers - from Germany, Slovenia and France - already have settled in.

"Physical space is surprisingly important. It's amazing in this over-connected world of cell phones and e-mail," said Saul Perlmutter, a UC Berkeley professor of physics who gave the center $600,000 of his 2007 Gruber Cosmology Prize. "It's that sense of ease of personal contact."

Just hanging out stimulates creativity in serendipitous ways. Perlmutter said a chance encounter about something that might not seem worth picking up the phone for, or walking down a flight of stairs for, can be remarkably productive.

"It can keep you going for a week or so," he said. "You need that sense of being willing to try something and having someone be excited - and also having somebody who's hard-nosed and able to shoot it down."

Tuesday's inauguration took place in the Center for Theoretical Physics, a big room with a huge skylight and two blackboards full of calculations and phrases such as "irrelevant operators" and "infinite tower of solutions."

That center opened recently - replacing a space that was, by all accounts, a dump - and is a good example of what Smoot's venture could accomplish.

"It's exceeded our wildest expectations, in terms of how much people interact," said Raphael Bousso, a UC theoretical physicist, after the event. "And as theorists, we need to have people around to tell us when we're complete idiots."

The cosmology center will create a "culture of growing young scientists," he said.

"People are creative in their 20s but at the same time that's when they still need a lot of guidance," Bousso said. "They need to be able to channel that creativity."

Richards echoed that sentiment in his official remarks.

"You are standing among giants in the fields of astrophysics and cosmology," Richards told those who turned out for the opening. "But the thing that makes Berkeley so extraordinary and keeps us all here is the youthful energy."

Afterward, he said he envisions the center as "a bubbling cauldron of activity" that will expand to Campbell Hall next door after the hall is torn down and rebuilt - the demolition could begin as early as July 2009 if the money is available. A bridge would join the new building with LeConte Hall.

Nearly 50 UC Berkeley, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and visiting scientists have joined the center, along with almost 20 postdoctoral fellows and a dozen graduate students. A program for visitors, outreach to K-12 science teachers and several international workshops also will be offered.

UC Berkeley Chancellor Robert Birgeneau, a physics professor, said there's a "golden age of astrophysics and cosmology here on campus." Smoot's 2006 Nobel Prize is one reflection of that. He shared the award with NASA scientist John Mather. Their work, relying on a Cosmic Background Explorer satellite they built, helped confirm the Big Bang theory of the universe.

The new center will be a haven for astronomers, cosmologists, physicists, mathematicians and computer scientists.

"Cosmology is about a lot besides cosmology," Richards said. "It's become quite an integrative science."

Astrophysicist Alex Filippenko said the center would bring together people working on different but overlapping aspects of some "mind-boggling and far-reaching" things, such as the accelerating expansion of the universe and the nature of dark matter.

"If there's a center, with people milling around, the total can be much greater than the sum of its parts," Filippenko said. "There's a certain synergy."

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